Chapter 10

"I know it's the first weekend you don't have to work, but I didn't know when I said yes. It was months ago and we'd only just met," Anna said. "It's going to be fun."

"But I don't know any of them."

"They're my best friends. You've met Tina and Louise. Jacob and Marcus are really nice, too."

"I've met them once. Tina hardly said a word. Jacob is apparently born with a silver spoon in his mouth and Marcus is studying anthropology. What do you think a snob and a intellectual think about a clerk in accounting?"

Anna sighed. "They're not like that at all. Tina is shy, but she's great fun once you get to know her. And Jacob is not a snob. From when he was twelve until his father finally made it, they lived in a three room flat and Jacob wore second hand clothes. His parent's house is really luxurious, but when you see their car you'll know they are anything but snobs."

Jacob had invited them for a weekend in his seaside parent's house. Jacob and Tina were housesitting while his parents were Christmas shopping in Paris. The way Anna had described the house it was larger than anything Martin had ever set his foot in. Apart from the seven bedrooms it had a huge conservatory with an indoor swimming pool. They had been invited to a pool party from Friday to Sunday.

Anna had told him about it a long time ago, but that was before he took the extra job and now that he was finally back to only one job and had a whole weekend off, he had hoped to spend it at home with Anna. He needed it. At the same time he also recognised that they mostly had seen his friends, whereas Anna had visited her friends alone. He could hardly let her go alone.

"So, what about the car?"

"It's a nineteen years old Volvo Stationcar. One of the neighbours was selling his house and complained, claiming the car damaged the value of his property."

Martin smiled. "All right. We'll give them a chance."

Louise and Marcus picked up Anna and Martin Friday afternoon. It was a one-hour drive and Anna and Louise did most of the talking. It gave Martin a chance to listen and get an idea about what the plans for the weekend looked like. The five of them had spent a weekend in the house the previous year and it did sound like they had a good time.

They arrived around six thirty. It had been dark since four o'clock and it was hard to get an impression of the house, except for the size: It was big. When they stepped out of the car they could smell the sea. It was above freezing but the wind made it feel colder. Jacob was waiting for them in the doorway and they hurried inside.

They all seemed to be nice, just like Anna had said they would be. Martin did his best to relax and forget his preconceived opinions about Jacob and Markus. Anna had force Jacob to give Martin a tour of the house and Jacob had been embarrassed about the luxurious home. His father had given up his job when Jacob was twelve to develop some kind of network gizmo for computers. It had taken him six years before he began to earn money. After that, the company quickly grew. Jacob's father had been wise enough to sell before the crisis hit the industry.

The pool party was to start Saturday. The pool was only heated for special occasions and it took a long time to heat up. Jacob and Tina had prepared an ordinary pot of minestrone soup, typical winter food and very delicious. They all talked until late, Martin sometimes feeling left out because the rest knew each other well and had a lot of common memories and inside jokes, but Marcus, in particular, was good at getting Martin back into the conversation.

They got up pretty late the following day. After breakfast they all went for a walk along the beach. It was a bright and frosty day, but the wind had stilled. The time of year was perfect for amber hunting and soon they were walking with their eyes fixed to the ground, chatting and looking. Louise was the first to find a tiny piece and what should have been a quick walk became a three hours treasure hunt for amber. Jacob, Martin and Tina found small pieces; Anna a larger one. Marcus found nothing and blamed his contact lenses.

After lunch they all changed into bathing suits and met by the pool. Sitting by the pool surrounded by exotic plants and looking out over the sea was surreal. It looked like it really was summer. Martin looked at the others and found one telltale sign that it was winter: it was a long time since any of them had been in the sun and their skin was pale. Martin began to study the others.

Tina's lack of tan was probably natural. She had red hair and a pale complexion, the only colour on her skin created by freckles down to her chest. She was pretty but not beautiful. Had it been a movie, all the girls would have been tall, slim and beautiful with big tits and the guys would have been muscular bodybuilder types, but Martin was content to see that they all looked ordinary; not ugly, not drop dead gorgeous, but ordinary.

Louise was dirty blonde and the bikini she wore was smaller than the one she used last summer. The faint tan lines were still visible on her breasts. Marcus was the tallest and he rarely went out in the sun without a T-shirt on. Jacob had no obvious tan lines; maybe he used the same trunks in the summer. He had his appendix taken out many years ago and the surgeon had a done a pretty lousy job. The scar was one of the longest Martin had ever seen.

Martin looked at Anna. She was taller and heavier build than Tina and Louise. Prettier, too, in Martin's opinion. There was something about Anna's eyes that outmatched the other two girls. Tina's eyes were relatively small and combined with her pale, almost pink skin, it made her look a little like a piglet. Louise' eyes were nice but they had a dull grey colour, which made them appear cold unless she was smiling.

Martin had been consumed in his thoughts when he heard something Louise said to Anna.

"So, have you made any progress with the game you were working on?"

"No, not really."

"A computer game?" Jacob asked.

"No, it's a board game for couples who wants to explore their intimate relations. The plan was to help couple who found it difficult to talk about their desires."

"You mean a sex game. That sounds like great fun," Marcus grinned.

"It's about sex, yes," Martin said, "but you have no idea how difficult it is to design it. There's so many things you have to take into account when you plan the questions and tasks."

"Like what?" Jacob asked.

"Like, everything has to be positive. You can't let one of the questions to the female be: "Do you think size matters?", in case the guy has a small penis. Also, if you ask a question like "What do you like the best about your partner?", and the guy answer: "Your arse.", she might start thinking that her breasts are too small."

Anna took over. "What we wanted to do was to get the things people might be afraid to talk about, out in the open. But how do you make sure that what one of the partner's dream of is also acceptable to the other?"

"Hey, you're really serious about it. I thought it was just a joke. Sorry. Do you have a prototype or something?"

"Several, but none of them are any good," Martin said. "The first one guided the players to do specific things, but the original idea was to get the players to reveal their own fantasies. That proved to be almost impossible to design. What we came up with was a game for people who would never need it, because they would already have talked it over."

"We have sort of given up for now, but what we need to do is find something in between. The game has to suggest several ideas and guide the players to choose what turn them on," Anna said.

"But it still leaves a lot of unsolved problems, like what appeals to one might not appeal to the other. First and foremost, we can't find a way to ensure that people who play it will actually dare to be honest."

The conversation had attracted everyone's attention.

"Why play it if you don't want to level with your partner?" Marcus asked.

"Because sex, and especially sexual fantasies, is taboo." Anna replied.

"We're not teenager any more," Marcus said. He looked over at Louise and smiled. She smiled back. Tina was quiet and looked thoughtful.

"Let me give you an example," Martin said. "Many men would love to see their girlfriend masturbate but masturbation is not something you talk about, and few will admit that they do it."

Nobody said anything for a while. Jacob looked around and grinned.

"This really proves that Anna and Martin have a point. As soon as Martin brings up masturbation, we all look at the floor."

"Hey, it's different to sit here and expose your sexlife in front of everyone," Louise protested.

"Martin was talking in general terms," Jacob replied. "We've known each other for a long time. It should possible to talk about sex, maybe even easier. Martin managed to say that he would love to see Anna masturbate without actually saying it, didn't he."

"Jacob is right," Marcus said. "I mean, we all turned to listen when Louise and Anna began talking about the game. We're all want to talk about it, but we're not as uninhibited as we want to think we are, me included."

Louise was still agitated and Martin had a feeling that it was another confirmation of just how difficult it was to talk about.

"It's not that I don't want to talk about sex. It's just..." Louise thought about it for a moment. "Maybe you're right." She turned to Anna. "Have you made a multi-player version of the game?"

"No, only a two player version. Once we crack that, we might consider developing other versions."

The tension eased, but a new prolonged silence followed. Again, Jacob broke the silence.

"What if you made different levels of the game? You could have three sets of questions or tasks, one for beginners, one for more experienced couples and one for those who are willing to do anything."

"We did consider something in that direction. It's a board game and we had four levels, but the idea was that the players gradually would want to do more as the game progressed. Your idea sounds better," Martin said. "But it is still a problem that either we design the game to suggest specific acts to be explored or the actions of the players are too loosely defined. The players might be too inhibited to do the things they really want to do."

"Have you tested it on anyone except yourselves?" Marcus wanted to know.

"No."

"You should have brought the prototype with you," Louise said.

"It's more like a stack of notes than it is a prototype."

"What kind of tasks have you planned to use? Or is it questions?" Marcus asked.

"Well, both. Naturally, the players have to loose their clothes and get physically involved in the game at some point towards the end. Finding the right way to build up to that is the challenge. As it is now, the first part are questions like 'What is the most exiting thing you have done with your partner?' and 'What part of your body do you feel is the most erotic/sensitive?' Pretty lame. Then we get to the difficult part where we either have to push them in a specific direction or ask what the players fantasies about when they masturbate?"

Louise giggled when Martin again mentioned masturbation. "You are very focused on masturbation, aren't you?"

"Look at it this way: it was primarily what sex was to me from I was thirteen until I was seventeen. Anyway, the best would be a combination and maybe Jacob's idea with the levels is the solution. One set for those who are ready to admit what they want to do and another for those in need of inspiration."

"If I'm going to play the devils advocate here for a sec. You mention one of the favourite fantasies of many men, seeing a woman masturbate. Number two, if not number one would be to be with two girls. How would you handle that?"

Before Martin could answer, Anna broke in. "That would have to be in the multi-player version."

Louise chose to overhear Anna's reply. "Or if they woman want to be with two men?"

"So you think many women dream about two men?" Marcus asked Louise. There was something going on between Marcus and Louise, but Martin couldn't determine if it was good or bad. It seemed friendly but it sounded like it was something they had discussed before.

"A woman is much more likely to be able to satisfy two men that a man is to satisfy two women," Louise promptly responded.

Jacob apparently also sensed the tension between Marcus and Louise and tried calmly to divert the focus away from their dispute. "It is a matter of what both of them want. If only one of them wants to involve an extra person, there is a potential problem. They have to agree. I think Anna or Martin pointed that out earlier as one of the difficulties about the game."

"We might agree on involving others but the question is how many and which gender," Louise said. "Men always think that all women dream about sex with another woman."

Again, Jacob tried to pour oil on the troubled waters. "Men are generally much more homophobic than women. That is probably why they find it natural that a woman will participate in a menage a trois, whereas many men will feel intimidated if it is two men and a woman. Naturally, that doesn't mean that all women want to do it or that all men are afraid of it."

"I'm sure you're right, but if a woman wants to experiment with another woman, she probably doesn't want or need a man to tell her what he wants her to do," Anna added.

Marcus thought about it for a moment. "If there is a man involved, the women will have something else to concentrate on, if it turns out not to be what they expected it to be."

"You can have a threesome without any man to man or woman to woman sex," Martin said.

Tina had been quietly listening to the conversation and Martin was surprised when she suddenly spoke.

"I've had this dream. I'm standing blindfolded in my satin pyjamas. Somebody leads me to a room and I can hear there are several people, but nobody speaks. Instead they begin to caress me through my pyjamas. There are hands everywhere, softly caressing me and it feels so smooth because of the satin. After a while some of the hands slips under my pyjamas. Warm hands on my stomach pushes the top up and I realised that I have nothing under. Slowly they take off the pyjamas and lay me down. I feel lips and tongues on my skin. I lie on my stomach first. When they have covered my backside with caresses and kisses, they turn me around and continue. They are everywhere and I let them because it feels so good. It goes on and on until I wake up. It's such a lovely dream."

Tina blushed and looked down. An awkward silence followed.

"Is it men or women?" Marcus finally asked.

"I don't know. I'm blindfolded." She thought about it for a moment. "I think it's both. It would be, because I hear sounds while they touch me. You know, sounds of... other people doing things."

"So, you never take the blindfold off?" Anna asked.

"No, I always wake up before."

"Do you want take it off?"

"I've thought about it."

"It's part of the excitement that the blindfold stays on," Louise said.

Martin smiled to himself. He was sure Anna and Tina were talking about something entirely different.

"If it had been my dream it would all have been girls," Marcus said.

Louise looked angrily at him and snarled, "You are so - so bloody afraid of letting go, aren't you?"

Marcus' eyes wavered. When he got up, Martin was about to get up too, fearing that Marcus was going to do something stupid. "I'm going to get a beer. Anyone else want one?"

"Yeah. Bring some," Jacob replied for all of them.

When he was out of the room, Anna turned to Louise. "Do you really want to have a threesome with two men?"

"I don't know. Marcus has this thing about two women and I said 'Okay, if you also want to do it with two men'. I knew he wouldn't, of course." Louise shrugged. "I'm happy with the old-fashioned way of one man and one woman. I can't see why it has to be so avant-garde and complicated. I just want Marcus. I mean, some part of me wants to do things, but then I become afraid that Marcus wants to take it farther than I want."

Marcus came back with his hands full of bottles. Anna sent Louise a look that said "We'll talk about it later". Jacob changed the subject, asking Anna about the pregnancy and our forthcoming wedding. Gradually, Marcus and Louise forgot their dispute.